


The Art of (Popsicle) War

by forestofsecrets



Category: Uta no Prince-sama
Genre: Comedy, Competition, Gen, Haruka is mentioned, Light-Hearted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24688270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forestofsecrets/pseuds/forestofsecrets
Summary: Popsicle sticks are required to label a growing herb and vegetable garden. Otoya, Syo, and Ren volunteer.However, one cannot have treats around without telling Camus.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	The Art of (Popsicle) War

**Author's Note:**

> This is loosely based on an event in real life, like some of my stories are. My dad is making a little vegetable garden and we needed sticks to mark what was what as things grew. Of course, part of that doesn't matter now since a very hungry bunny pillaged our vegetable patch... Our beans have been desecrated.
> 
> Made on 06/12/2020.

They say that if you have more information than your enemy…

When summer rolled around, talks of starting a garden sprang up among the idols. It would be a small garden, hosting no more than herbs and a few choice vegetables. It was proposed by Masato and Natsuki, with the former musing about wanting fresh garnish and the latter actually volunteering his time and expertise to make it happen. Since then, the gardening team had been expanded to include Tokiya and Cecil. The remaining members of STARISH formed their own team; the popsicle team.

“Here’s what we gotta do,” Syo set a box of popsicles down on the table, “we need to eat these and give the sticks to the gardening team. They’re gunna use ‘em to label their seed rows.” His hands were already busy prying the box open, tearing the cardboard flaps to get to the sweet treats inside. Once opened, he passed a wrapped popsicle to both Otoya and Ren before taking one for himself.

“How many do they need?” Otoya ripped the wrapper off of his, revealing a bright red colour. Not wasting any time, he stuck the popsicle in his mouth, discovering it was strawberry flavoured. “I could probably eat a few of these.” They weren’t all that big and trying out some of the different flavours didn’t sound like a bad idea. There were quite a few listed on the side of the box. Signing up for the popsicle team was proving to be the correct choice.

By now, Syo had also removed the wrapper on his popsicle to reveal an orange colour. “I dunno, the whole box?” He hadn’t received any specific instructions from the gardening team other than Cecil would be by to collect their sticks soon. A look at the box told him that there were twenty-five popsicles per box. It wasn’t an impossible task per say but…

“Why don’t we make this interesting?” A proposal by Ren caught Otoya and Syo’s attention, sparking their competitive natures. Ren had gotten a grape popsicle and was using it to illustrate his point. “Whoever eats the most popsicles wins and the losers get a punishment game.”

A little friendly competition was never to be shied away from. “What’re the stakes?” It made Syo’s tongue press against his popsicle a little more insistently, the frozen treat never leaving his mouth while his eyes were trained on Ren.

“Something simple, nothing painful.” The more Ren spoke, the more Syo could see that his tongue was turning purple. “We could do shaving again.” 

Otoya jumped at the mention. His eyebrows had grown back since last time and he wasn’t about to go through that again. “Legs this time. And the losers gotta wear shorts!” The strawberry flavour didn’t affect Otoya’s tongue as he stuck it out as much as Ren’s grape did. Syo was sure his own tongue was a well-turned mix of orange and pink by now. 

“Deal.” Throwing his own voice into the conversation, Syo let them know he was cool with the terms. With that agreed to by all parties, the contest was on. Syo’s strategy was to try to stuff as much as he could into his mouth and suck on it. That way, he figured, the heat from his mouth would melt the parts of the popsicle he couldn’t reach yet. It took all of his focus to keep working against the spreading chill, the inside of his cheek had already turned numb. This may be slightly harder than he originally thought but he wasn’t one to back down.

Before any of them could finish their first popsicle, they were joined by one of their senior idols.

“What’s going on here? More popsicles?” From the way Camus’s voice cracked down on them, one would think they were up to something illegal. Then again, they were eating popsicles without him.

Ren quickly seized the opportunity to draw more people into their pool. “Wanna join us, Baron? There’s a bet in place. All you need to do is eat the most popsicles and you win.” The last few pieces of his grape popsicle were coming apart on him, Ren had to pop the entire stick in his mouth to avoid having them drip on him. The stick was clean when he removed it. “Interested? Or maybe it’s too much for you?” He let his recently finished stick twirl in his fingers.

At the swipe at his pride, Camus huffed and sat down. He was already reaching for the box. “Popsicles are child’s play.” At his unwrapping, the colour was white. “The winner is the one who eats the most, you say?” He tasted his popsicle and Syo had to double check what flavour that even was. The box said it was pineapple.

It was well known how much Camus liked sweets. If he counted shaved ice as dessert then popsicles should count too, right? Either way, Syo’s odds of winning just shot down by a solid percentage. “Maybe we should team up. Do a group thing, you know?” He was behind Ren in finishing his first popsicle but not by much. Camus’s first, however, was already over halfway done and Syo had no idea how he did it. Otoya still had a small chunk left to go.

“Fine by me.” Camus spoke between licks. “The three of you can team up, it matters not. I will emerge victorious.” It was practically a declaration of war, paired with eyes of ice. Ren looked at both Syo and Otoya for objections and neither gave one. Syo swallowed the last piece of his first popsicle and leaned over the table for another one.

As the battle progressed, Syo’s mouth slowed. He had gotten through his second and third alright but his fourth was lagging. He had gotten tongue tied and brain freeze along the way. They had quickly established that only after one popsicle is done could another be taken so Syo was fighting for one of the few left in the box at the moment. Otoya had somehow pulled all the strawberry ones by sheer luck so Syo got doubles of the other flavours. Ren was the slowest out of their STARISH three despite talking a big game.

Camus, Syo was quickly coming to loathe, was motoring right along. He easily had ten empty sticks stacked up like it was nothing. That was close to half the box, eaten by a single man in a single sitting. He showed no signs of slowing down, tossing aside another empty wrapper into his growing pile. 

It was enough to spur Syo forward, teeth coming down to crunch on the last bits of his fourth popsicle. He was grabbing another a second before slamming the empty popsicle stick down. It was the last one in the box. “Last one,” he barely had time to shout out before using his teeth to tear open the wrapper. This one was orange, like the one he started with. A quick count told Syo that Ren had a total of four so the blond must have picked up his pace. Otoya also had four, bringing their total up to eight. Syo himself just finished four and was on his fifth and with him grabbing the last popsicle out of the box, their game had come to an end. 

“I got five,” Syo tried to speak around the popsicle he still had in his mouth. There was less of an urgency to finish it knowing that it was the last one. Otoya held up his four sticks and Ren chimed in that he had the same number. Triumph and to a lesser extent, relief, surged through him. They had won. He could slow down and actually enjoy this last popsicle.

“We’ve got thirteen out of twenty-five.” Ren voiced their total. “Basic math tells us that we win, Baron.” With a hand curled under his chin, Ren looked positively delighted at the outcome of the match. 

“Kurusu hasn’t finished yet.” The count was truly splitting hairs, in Syo’s opinion, since this last stick was guaranteed on STARISH’s side. Never the less, he hurried along once more, out of slight desperation to let his mouth warm up. While he slurped away on the melting treat, their group grew one size more as Cecil arrived to collect their popsicle sticks. 

He looked positively unsurprised to see that Camus had inserted himself into the popsicle party. “How fitting it is to find you here. It was a mistake on my part to assume one box could satisfy you and your gluttonous stomach.” Cecil looked on with disgust at the pile of popsicle sticks in front of Camus. “Giving you a box to yourself clearly wasn’t enough.”

That made Syo swallow a larger chunk of ice than he meant to. “Did ya ju’t say that he had ‘n entire box to ‘imself?” An entire box as in twenty-five popsicles? He choked down the final piece and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “An entire box?” Syo reiterated himself, making sure his point was being made.

“An entire box.” It was Camus who answered with a smirk. “Using your own phrase, Jinguji, basic math tells me that I have won. One should not so carelessly assume victory without knowing all the facts. I expect my prize at a later date.” With the popsicles eaten, Camus viewed his presence as no longer required. He took his leave grandly, sweeping out of the room before anyone could correct him.

Otoya groaned, throwing his head back. Syo found himself inclined to agree with that sentiment. Ren was left chuckling, saying something about how unexpected that turn of events was. Obviously pouting, Otoya muttered. “Do you think Haruka would give me some of her shaving cream? Girls have the nice smelling stuff, right?” Syo didn’t know about that one but a bet was a bet.

… Then the battle’s already won.

**Author's Note:**

> Camus played them all. Did they really think they could win against him when free popsicles were involved? Please. At least their legs will smell like raspberries.


End file.
